Bangladesh booters edge past Afghanistans

INCHEON, Sept. 15 (BSS): Bangladesh national U-23 football team got off to a auspicious start in the 17th Asian Games when they edged past SAFF champions Afghanistan by a solitary goal held on Monday at the Munhak Stadium in Incheon, South Korea.

Skipper Mamunul Islam Mamun scored the decisive goal for Bangladesh in the 83rd minute of the match with a low drive from the edge of the box.
Afghanistan placed 31 above Bangladesh in FIFA rankings, clearly dominated the first-half and created a number of scoring opportunities, but failed to capitalize any of them.
However, the boys in red and green fought back in the second-half and played better football before snatching the all-important goal.
Bangladesh will play their second match of Group B against strong Uzbekistan on September 18 before taking on Hong Kong on September 22.
Talking to the reporters after the match, Bangladesh team skipper Mamun termed their next two group matches are very important and expressed his firm determination to carry out winning spree in the next matches.
He said two practice matches against Nepal and a warm-up match against Vietnam helped them a lot to raise their performance to earn the victory.
Team coach Lodewijk Darius de Kruif also happy over the boys performance in the day's match against Afghanistan and hoped to win the remaining matches.
Football results from the
Asian Games on Monday:
Group stage
Men
North Korea 3 China 0
Bangladesh 1 Afghanistan 0
UAE 5 India 0
East Timor 0 Indonesia 7
Iran 1 Vietnam 4
Uzbekistan 1 Hong Kong 1
Thailand 2 Maldives 0
Women
Jordan 2 Taiwan 2
Japan 0 China 0